New York Times Notable Book—a heroic young physician and his family build a life on the Illinois frontier in the nineteenth century in this "thinking person's Western" from a New York Times–bestselling author (The Press-Enterprise).

"What a book! It's a joy to read. Noah Gordon has given those of us who like good, strong, warm-hearted novels a wonderful gift." —Tony Hillerman

Dr. Robert Judson Cole travels from his ravaged Scotland homeland, through the operating rooms of Boston, to the cabins of frontier Illinois. In the wilderness he befriends the starving remnants of the Sauk tribe, who have fled their reservation. In the process, he absorbs their culture and learns native remedies that enrich the classical medical education he received at Edinburgh University. He marries a remarkable settler woman he had saved from illness. The details of how their deaf son manages to become a physician also, despite his handicap, and the story of how the Cole family is sucked into the bloody vortex of the Civil War and survives, makes an exceptional reading experience.